This course will examine the basic elements of fiction, the “tools”
writers use to tell a story, as these have been deployed in short
stories and novels over the past two centuries and, more recently, in
a work of hypertext fiction. Focusing on the formal strategies that
distinguish fiction from other media (such as film, video games,
television, etc.), the course will approach fiction as a highly
specialized “machine” for producing specific kinds of knowledge about
ourselves and about the world. Following a rough historical
trajectory, the course will examine transformations in the mechanics
of fiction and consider the ways in which these transformations in
the form of fiction as well as in its thematic concerns reflect,
respond to, and perhaps, transform our understanding of the
capacities and limits of the (human) self. Practicing explication
and literary analysis, we will enter into dialogue with these works
of fiction, attempting to both understand and critique the knowledges
of self offered by various works of fiction. Close, critical reading
of the fiction will be essential in this course. It will allow you
to actively contribute to, and profit from, lively class discussions
and, subsequently, to develop your insights on these works of fiction
into a clear, coherent, and compelling written analysis. (Please
keep in mind that you will be composing approximately twenty-five
pages of polished, thought-provoking critical analysis over the
course of the semester: this is a COAS intensive writing course).